Back to the Drawing Board
by BurnThoseEyesBlue
Summary: The first time Caleb ever heard about the drawings, he was still a youngling in the crèche.


**Happy early Thanksgiving, y'all! I know this isn't Thanksgiving related, but it's my gift to you.**

 **Surprisingly, this prompt isn't from the swrrequests blog. It's from the awful-aus one instead. It really caught my eye. I changed some things up, but it's largely similar.**

 **Here's the prompt: Submitted AU #297 - "I keep finding myself waking up in my own room but with a hand-drawn picture of the same person every time, although I can't draw for my life. It's been happening for most of my life, then one day I see you walking down the street and begin to follow you, hoping for answers." AU**

 **Enjoy!**

* * *

The first time Caleb ever heard about the drawings, he was still a youngling in the crèche. One of the older initiates came running in, brandishing a piece of paper wildly.

"Look!" She cried, thrusting the paper in the master's face. "My master found me! I'm going to be a Padawan!"

The master's eyes lit up, and she took the paper, oohing and awwing. Caleb crawled over and peered over her arm.

It was a detailed black and white sketch done by pencil, and on actual parchment no less. Caleb wrinkled up his nose; who actually used paper anymore? On the paper, the girl's face smiled up at him. He glanced up at the newly assigned Padawan. The drawing got all her the minuscule details - the twinkle in her eye, the small, shy smile, the little scar running across her chin. Some of the other younglings looked and crawled away, bored. But not Caleb.

"Have you gotten your own drawings yet?" The master asked.

The girl shook her head. "Not yet. My master says they'll probably start soon." The girl grabbed her paper back, waved to the younglings, and dashed back out. The crèche master smiled fondly after her.

"Who drew that?" Caleb asked, tugging lightly on her robe. The crèche master jerked out of her trance and blinked down at him.

"You don't know about the drawings?" She asked, a slight furrow between her eyebrows.

Caleb shook his head.

"Well," she said, biting the inside of her cheek in thought. "Nobody is quite sure how the drawings work."

"Not even Master Yoda?" Caleb gasped, and the master grinned. Some of the other younglings came back over and kneeled near Caleb, eager to listen to the story.

"No, not even Master Yoda." Some of the younglings gasped in shock.

"But Master Yoda knows everything!" A little twi'lek boy exclaimed, looking positively horrified.

Their teacher shrugged. "They say the drawings are a gift from the Force," she said. "A way for masters to know that the Padawan they choose is the right one. While the master sleeps, or is deep in meditation, they go into some sort of trance and draw it somehow. And when they wake, they find this hand-drawn picture of their future Padawan."

"But I can't draw!" Caleb said worriedly. Several of his age-mates chimed in with fear.

"Another gift of the Force," the master said. "The drawings are always lifelike, detailed, and exact."

"That's so cool!"

"It's been happening for most of my life," the master continued.

"Are one of us going to be your Padawan?!" A youngling in the back called out. The crèche master laughed and shook her head no.

"I suppose it gives other Jedi hope. It'll happen to you one day, too."

The other younglings erupted into excited giggles of "I wonder what my Padawan will look like!" and "I wonder if a Master is drawing me right now!" Caleb sat at the teacher's feet, looking incredibly thoughtful.

"Caleb, I can already tell you have questions," the teacher said, looking amused.

"How did you know?"

"You _always_ have questions."

Caleb grinned sheepishly. "What happens if nobody ever draws you? If I never draw anybody, does that mean I'm not going to be a Master?"

The crèche master looked a little surprised. "I don't know of anybody who hasn't experienced the drawings," she said, looking thoughtful. "Even Master Kenobi drew drawings of Master Skywalker, even thought their situation was a little... different. But if a Master doesn't draw you, then I guess that means you're not cut out to be a Jedi."

Caleb felt a chill run up his spine, and he felt the bottom of his lip start to quiver.

The crèche master huffed a little laugh at the worried look on his face. "I don't think you have to worry," she said, smiling gently at him. "I can already tell you're going to be a great teacher one day."

Caleb grinned back at her, his fears temporarily calmed, and he scampered off to go talk to his friends.

* * *

"My drawings are going to be the best out of everybody's!"

"Yeah, right! You can't even draw a Tooka!"

"Can so!"

"Can not!"

"Boys, _please_."

* * *

That night, Caleb sat in his quarters. He laid out a piece of parchment paper and a pencil on his writing slab, making sure they were perfectly straight.

Smiling, he climbed into bed and was out like a light.

The next morning the page was still blank, but it didn't deter Caleb in the slightest. It became a habit of his to lay out supplies before he slept, much to his friends' amusement.

* * *

From then on, the drawings were always in the back of his mind. Sometimes he'd see anxious masters standing and observing their training, looking at a piece of paper in their hands and back at the group. Sometimes they left with a student, and sometimes they didn't.

"What happens if they never find each other?" Caleb asked one day, watching as a one master who constantly came and left empty-handed walked out, dejected.

"They'll find each other," the teacher promised. "If it's the Force's will."

"Well, what if the Force is wrong?" Caleb asked, blinking up innocently. Well, as innocently as a youngling could, having just questioned the Order and its way of life.

The teacher sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Only you, Dume."

* * *

When Depa Billaba met him officially for the first time, her eyes lit up. Caleb felt the connection, and he knew she did, too, but it went deeper than that.

The first time they actually got to sit down and talk, she pulled out a neat folder. He looked at her curiously, and she handed it to him, a slightly excited (and... nervous?) look in her eyes.

He opened the flap and stared down at a picture perfect copy of himself. His mouth dropped open and split into a grin. She returned it.

"You can keep them," she said. "It's yours."

Caleb gently pulled out the sheets and fanned them out. There were pictures of him smiling, frowning, and even a few where he looked like he wanted to ask a question.

"How long have you been drawing these?" Caleb asked, his fingertips lightly brushing over the pages.

Depa shrugged, tapping her fingers on the edge of the table in thought. "You know, I'm not quite sure," she said. "The very first time I drew one was when I was still a Padawan. I woke up my master in the middle of the night with it." She chewed on the inside of her cheek. "I only started drawing them more and more towards the start of the Clone Wars."

"Why?"

"I assume because the drawings appear more and more frequently the closer you are to meeting for the first time."

"Did Master Windu draw them of you?" Caleb asked curiously.

"Of course. He let me keep mine, too."

"Did you ever worry you wouldn't draw one?" Caleb blurted out. He hurried to cover his mouth, looking at her with wide eyes.

Depa looked back at him, amused. "No, because I knew it was the will of the Force."

"Was I what you expected?" Caleb asked, grinning up at her.

She snorted. "Definitely not." Caleb crinkled his nose at her. "But that doesn't mean you're not what I wanted."

* * *

Depa eventually stops asking him "has it happened yet?" in the mornings when they wake up. Now, she gives him a small, sad, brief smile, and moves on.

* * *

Caleb's other Padawan friends come rushing to him, beaming, the first time they draw their picture. But Caleb's paper remains blank, and slowly, his friends stop telling him, and the rumors start.

 _Why can't he draw one? What if he's bad luck?_ They say. _His Master is damaged goods. Is he?_

As the months passed, Caleb's paper remained blank every night, and slowly, he stopped laying them out. And once he joined in the fighting in the Clone Wars, well, it was the last thing on his mind.

* * *

The next time the drawings come up is long after Order 66, when Caleb is living on the streets of Kaller.

One night, Caleb dreamed. He was dreaming of his master, watching her gunned down, the spray of the blood, the outstretched hand, when it all changed and faded away.

He blinked, and there was a fuzzy image of a boy standing in front of him, laughing. Later, when he thinks back, he couldn't remember the boy's face, but he remembered bits and pieces. Shaggy hair. Bright blue eyes. A wide, cocky grin.

He woke up the next morning, and clutched in his hand, drawn on the back of a torn wrapper from the tipped over dumpster, is the first sketch of the boy's grinning face.

"No way," Caleb whispered. His joy threatened to bubble over, and he couldn't stop himself from giggling with excitement. It's the first time he truly laughed since Order 66, and he was full of unbridled glee. He shoved his face into his hands, his grin so wide it feels like his face was going to split.

He gently traced the outline of the boy's face. Oh, how he wished his Master was here to see this.

But then he started thinking. The Jedi Order is no more. How is he supposed to train a Padawan? He's still a Padawan himself; he never finished his training. And what about the Empire? What if they got to the boy first? How is he even supposed to find this boy?

A chill ran up Caleb's spine, and he shivered. He clutched the drawing close to his chest and took a shaky breath.

What was he going to do?

* * *

When Caleb first started working for Janus Kasmir, he had a few conditions, which Kasmir thought was endlessly amusing because this kid was in no position to make the rules, but he'd at least give it a shot.

One, no mention of the Jedi. Two, don't call him kid. And three? He wanted a full stack of actual paper at all times. Complete with writing utensils.

Kasmir raised an eyeridge at that, but hey, what did he know? Must've been some sort of weird Jedi thing.

* * *

When Caleb took on his new alias, it was silly, but he worried that he'd no longer get the drawings. After all, Caleb Dume was the Padawan, not Kanan Jarrus.

So it was kind of a surprise when one morning he woke up with another drawing in his hand. A happy one, but a surprise nonetheless.

* * *

Another thing that Kanan noticed was that having the drawings, and therefore the promise of a Padawan, made him a lot better person than he would've turned out to be without it.

He was no stranger to alcohol, especially after joining and leaving Kasmir, but it seemed... wrong somehow. When the boy showed up one day, he didn't want to be an alcoholic. What sort of example would that set for him?

Hera helped with that, too, but still. There was something about the boy.

* * *

When Kanan first told Hera about his conditions for joining her crew, she laughed, not thinking he was serious.

She stopped laughing pretty quickly when she saw he wasn't.

"You're serious?!" She asked, looking at him like he was crazy. "Actual paper?"

"Take it or leave it," he said. She agreed, but sometimes when she handed him the paper at the end of each month, he felt her looking at him curiously.

* * *

It was nice, having his own permanent room on the Ghost. He hid away his holocron and his lightsaber, stuffed his robe under some sheets, but he wasn't sure of what to do with the drawings. It felt wrong to hide them away with the items of his past; after all, the boy was going to be a part of his future.

He pasted them up on one of the walls. He didn't have very many drawings yet, only a handful, so he hung them on the wall over his desk. He stood back and admired his handwork, hands on his hips. And slowly, he pulled out a piece of paper and a pencil and laid it under it, just like he used to when he was a youngling.

One night, Hera slid into his room and looked over at the wall curiously.

"I didn't know you could draw," she said admiringly. She stepped up close to them and looked at one of the pictures of the boy laughing.

"I can't," Kanan said truthfully.

"You didn't draw these?"

"No, I did." At her confused look, he sighed. "It's a Jedi thing."

"Oh." Hera turned back around and studied them again. "Who is he?"

Kanan hesitated. "I don't know."

"What do you mean, you don't know?" Hera asked. Kanan gave a sheepish smile, and Hera nodded in sudden understanding, and they said in unison: "It's a Jedi thing."

"Exactly," Kanan said, still grinning sheepishly.

"He seems like a good kid," Hera tried again.

Kanan shrugged. "I wouldn't know."

Hera groaned, rolling her eyes. "You're killing me, Kanan. You have to know something."

He chuckled. "Look, all I know is that I'm going to train him one day. The Jedi would have these... sort of trances, I guess you could say, where when you reach a certain age, you start drawing pictures of your future student." He shook his head. "I don't know his name, his personality, where he's from. But one day, we'll find each other, and if it's the will of the Force, I'll train him."

"You mean, we're getting another crew member?" Hera said, looking a little surprised.

"Surprise," Kanan said, teasing.

* * *

Little did they know, they were actually going to get two more crew members, too. Kanan liked Zeb and Sabine, don't get him wrong, but Hera noticed that sometimes his shoulders seemed to slump as he waited for the boy.

* * *

Not long after Sabine joined their crew, Kanan started waking up with a lot more drawings.

One night, Kanan accidentally fell asleep at the kitchen table, and when he woke up, he was surrounded by dozens and dozens of drawings. Hera was standing there, looking at him curiously. She was holding one of the boy grinning cockily, a usual one that Kanan had drawn in the past. She raised an eyebrow and set it back down in his hand.

"It's going to be soon," he promised. He felt the familiar rush of excitement swirl in his stomach.

Sabine came walking in, yawning and ruffling her hair. She glanced over at Kanan and Hera and grunted a hello, obviously not awake enough for this. Her gaze landed on his drawings, and he could see the wheels in her mind start turning. Her eyes lit up, and instantly, she ran over, picked one up, and held it up to the light.

"I didn't know you could draw!" Sabine exclaimed, looking almost as excited as when she got to blow stuff up.

"That's about the extent of my abilities," Kanan said, exchanging a knowing grin with Hera.

"I thought I was good at busts, but you definitely take the cake," Sabine said admiringly. "Do you take commissions?"

Hera laughed at the befuddled look on Kanan's face.

* * *

That night, Kanan dreamed about the boy again. He was grinning and dancing about, and Kanan was laughing at him.

"Wait!" Kanan asked, one arm outstretched towards him. "When am I going to find you?"

The boy tilted his head to the side, his usual cocky grin in full blaze. "Soon," he promised. "Don't you think you've been waiting long enough?" The boy turned to disappear, and Kanan cried out again, desperate.

"But where?"

The boy paused and turned his head to the side, floppy bangs falling into his eyes. "You ever been to Lothal?" he asked.

Kanan jerked awake with a gasp. He sat up and kicked off the blankets, fumbling around for his shirt. He rushed out his room and stumbled to Hera's, knocking frantically. Hera answered it, yawning. She took in the sight of Kanan, with his poofy, not brushed hair and wild eyes, and raised an eyebrow.

"We have to go to Lothal," he gasped out. He finished tugging the shirt over his head, chest heaving. "Hera, we have to go there now."

* * *

The flight to Lothal was a hectic one, with Hera scrambling to contact Fulcrum and plan a new mission to make up for the other one they scrapped. Zeb and Sabine were doing last minute prep, Chopper was rushing around doing maintenance, and Kanan... well, Kanan was sitting in his room, staring at the most recent picture.

The boy was scowling up at him, obviously unhappy about something. Kanan was trying to memorize his face, the spark of intelligence in his eyes, the way his hair framed his face, the way his cheekbone was shaped. He wasn't having much luck because of how jittery he was.

Would the boy know? Would there be a connection, like with his master? How would they find each other? What if something had happened? What if the Empire had gotten to him first? What if he wasn't even on Lothal? Hera would probably kill him, if that was the case.

What if the boy didn't even want to be trained?

Kanan really wished he had his master right about now.

* * *

When the boy jumped down onto the motorbike and made to speed off, Kanan didn't know whether he wanted to laugh or cry.

"Wait!" Kanan said, holding out a hand. Zeb looked at him like he was crazy, and so did the boy, but miraculously he paused. Kanan hastily pulled out the piece of paper from his pocket, and with a shaky hand, extended it in the boy's direction. The boy narrowed his eyes, obviously sensing the connection between the two of them.

Kanan smiled. "I've been waiting on you for a long, long time."

* * *

 **What wasn't pictured:** **Ezra seeing all of the pictures, and Kanan explaining them to him.**

 ** _"... So, yeah. That's basically it."_**

 ** _Ezra was silent a moment, staring at the neat little folder Kanan presented to him._**

 ** _"Kanan, that's actually really creepy. Why tf did nobody call child protective services on the Jedi?"_**

 ** _Kanan slowly lowered the outstretched folder and stared down at it. "You know," he said, looking incredibly thoughtful. "I don't really know. You're right."_**

 **I'm just teasing about that last part... sorta ;)**

 **This kind of reads more like a headcanon list, but idec. If any of y'all have any ideas for this AU, or have a song for it, let me hear it. I like having songs for each of my fics. I should make a playlist.**

 **R &R.**


End file.
